July 7, 2025 • 34 mins
In the second hour of today's show, featuring Jon Caldara filling in for Ryan Schuiling, Jon reflects on the 4th of July and Colorado's fireworks laws.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Live. This is this is John kelderic kind of you know,
half asking it, barely awake.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I think maybe that's that's a better way to do it.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Give me a call three or three seven one, three, eight,
two five five. I hope your Fourth of July was spectacular.
I've in Boulder where I live. Of course there is
no fireworks, because heaven forbid there'd be fireworks.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Did you did you have fireworks where you were?
Speaker 1 (00:29):
I saw a poll done was actually done by Reason Foundation.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Reasoning is, yeah, the Reason Foundation.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
And they asked a whole bunch of kind of patriotic
questions why did we separate from England? And the answer
depended upon your age. If you were between eighteen and
twenty five, only about twenty twenty three percent said taxation
without representation. When you got up to sixty five year olds,
(01:03):
it was well over eighty percent said taxation.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Now the question is, did people.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Who are older now and understand that, Were they dumb
back then when they were twenty I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
I just don't think they teach this stuff anymore.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
They don't teach why we had a revolution, why we
did this, and what an extraordinary experiment experiment America is
after nearly a quarter of a millennia. Anyway, give me
a call, three or three seven, three eight, two five five.
(01:45):
The one that I found interesting was that still overwhelmingly
Americans like fireworks. And I'm not talking going out to
see a show. Americans like shooting off their own fireworks.
(02:08):
You know, the rocket's red glare and all. There is
something magnificent about about sparklers, Roman candles, all the rest.
You know what it's like when you cross the Wyoming
border and you drive by a place called Pyro City.
(02:29):
How in the world can you not stop at any
place called Pyro City where you can buy all the
stuff your heart desires, things that will blow off your fingers.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
That your mom would never let you have. But now
that you're an adult, you can buy.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
And I mean you still won't tell her because you
can't stand up to your mom, But.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
That doesn't matter. It's right there and Piro City.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
I think there's a couple of different places up there
buy firecrackers.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Now, I don't know about you.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Growing up in Littleton in the seventies, occasionally some kid
their family would go up to Wyoming and they would
buy firecrackers, and the guy would get a hold of them.
This this was cocaine, all right. This was the underground
(03:26):
drug of middle school. The guy who had the firecrackers
could dole them out and.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Mark them up. It was.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
It was if you switch firecracker for illicit Colombian cocaine.
Same thing. There was a guy who was the dealer,
and you got to the dealer to buy a package
of firecrackers, and a package of firecrackers usually had either
(04:02):
sixteen or thirty two or sometimes.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Sixty four firecrackers.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
For those of you who don't know the incredible science
and art of firecrackers. You light them and they start exploding,
sounding like guns going off. But when you buy a
package of sixteen at a considerable price, you don't like
(04:34):
the package on fire, as is normally done. No, you
unwrap the package, you rip it open, and you fight
them one at a time. You dig little holes and
pretend there's sticks to dynamite, and see how deep a
hole a firecracker will will blow open.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
You.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
You try to see what you can blow up and
what you cannot blow up. You do the little trick
where you break the firecracker in half, bend it, light it,
and then it kind of turns into this little sparkler
thing that shoots out sparks for three seconds two seconds.
(05:22):
And of course the evil Canievel amongst the boys, would
hold a fire cracker at the tips of his fingers,
knowing to hold.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
It down at the very very very very very very.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Very bottom with his fingernails, light it and it would
explode in his fingers. Now you don't hold it in
the middle or touch the middle because it would blow
off your fingers.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
But that's the daredevil. And when I say that this
was done by the evil Canievl when.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
You were a kid talking about buddies of mind, when
we got firecrackers when we were thirty five years old.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Let's put it in.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
This jar and see if it blows up the jar. Yes,
let's do that. You gonna hold it in your hand. Yeah,
I used to do this when I was a kid. Like,
you're crazy. No, because how to put it. As a
male grows from being pre pubescent to adolescent to adult
(06:32):
to aged, clart does not change at all.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Oh yes, yes, he might be able to do his taxes.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
He might even be able to tie a necktie very conventionally,
but he will still try to blow up his finger
if you give him half a chance, because works over
(07:09):
the weekend. Did you shoot off fireworks? Did you buy
you know, the whimpy kind of fireworks that's a Roman
candle and he goes and it blows, you know, some
sparks in the air, or did you buy the real stuff?
You know what I'm talking about? Did you buy them eighties?
(07:30):
Because according to fifth grade folklore, an M eighty is
the same as a quarter stick of dynamite.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
We just knew this as fact. It was right there.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
You know, there's what four pints in a in a
court whatever that is, there are four four M eights,
four M eighties or was it an M sixty?
Speaker 2 (07:55):
I forget?
Speaker 1 (07:56):
And then the glorious cherry bomb. Of course we knew
about explosives. And then you get older, it's like, oh,
those kids stop it. So it was a little bit
more wisdom. Do you still support individual fireworks? And I'm
(08:17):
not just talking sparklers. Sparklers are wonderful. You need to
have sparklers. That's an American tradition. If you don't give
your kids sparklers, you're a bad parent. Now, they could
still burn the kid's hands. We still do exactly the
same stuff as as all the bad stuff. But do
(08:40):
you still support it or should it be banned? Three
oh three seven one three eight two five five seven
one three talk?
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Did you commit crime this weekend? Did you.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Light off things you should not light off? And when
you did, because I know you did. Did you have
that scary moment where you got one of those little
things that spins around on the ground and then flies
off in different directions, And then of course you do
it in your road in front of your house, and
(09:18):
of course it always goes under a car, and for
like three seconds you're certain it's going to ignite the
gas tank and you're going to see a magnificent explosion.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Come on, you did it? You know exactly what I'm
talking about. Or did you do the glow worm? Do
you remember the glow worm? Light the glow worm? And
it was this.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Toxic thing, Oh my god, And it would ignite it
like incense, but it would kind of grow, the ashes
would kind of puff out, and it would look kind
of like a glowworm.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
I always liked as a kid the smoke bombs. They
look like little cherry bombs. You would light them and
it would give out colored smoke. Why Because I watched
Star Trek and I dream a Genie and I gream
of Dnie. She would turn into smoke and move and
(10:16):
go into her little bottle. Then, don't get me talking
about how awesome that is. But how did they do it?
I was like, oh no, if you get a smoke bomb,
it's like that. And so you get a smoke bomb.
I don't know what carcinogen's I don't know what kind
of evil agent orange stuff comes flying out of smoke bombs.
(10:38):
But as a kid, it was the coolest and to
see it in different colors. How did you hide it
from your mom? It wasn't so much as you hide
it from your dad because if he found him, he'd
just go light him himself. Because again the stupid gene
(11:00):
and just locks in at six years old and you
ride it until you die. But mom, Mom does not
find blowing up things nearly as exciting as you do.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Why. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
It's like she's smart or something, and it likes it's
her job to keep you alive until you grow up.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Gonda buzzkill?
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Is that?
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Three or three? Seven?
Speaker 1 (11:31):
One three eight two five five seven one three talk
and of course, just like clockwork, you have to get
all the warnings about fireworks before Fourth of July, and
then you've got to hear all the stories of how
many more people have to go to the emergency room
(11:52):
because of fireworks.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
It's it's just tradition.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Here they are, they're coming in, and yeah, of course
that's what happens. Of course, if you worked at an er,
fourth of July has to suck. I mean probably better
than you know being in New Orleans during Marty Graul,
where all you're doing is pumping stomachs. You know, at
least here you're trying to sew fingers back on.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
That's gotta be fun.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Did you, when you were young have pop bottle rocket fights?
I cannot imagine in modern suburban Colorado the idea of people,
little kids shooting pop bottle rockets at one another would
go go over too well.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Did you have the guy in school who who was.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Brave enough to light the firecrackers off in the hallway
or in the lunch room. Oh, we we had those guys,
and the smoke would just hang there and hang there
and hang there. I can understand why so many nannyists
want to get rid of personal fireworks. I say, you
(13:19):
can pry them out of my cold, dead, fingerless hands.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Before you take mine.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Three all three seven one three eight two five five
seven one three Talk.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Did you bring your kids up? Did you get the
good stuff? And you know what I mean by the
good stuff?
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Did you get the stuff that can blow off your fingers?
Speaker 2 (13:50):
That's all all I'm looking for.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
According to the survey that I saw, a majority of
Americans still love shooting off fireworks personally.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
I found that refreshing the countdown clock starts. Now.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
In less than a year, our country will be two
hundred and fifty years old. I remember the bi centennial.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
I was a kid.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
I remember Colorado had those special license plates. This was back.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
You might remember this.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Every year the state would send you brand new license plates,
same number, have the same tag number, but it would
imprint a different year. So every year you took off
your old place, you put on your new plates, and
still until some guy at the at the state prison said,
(14:58):
you know, instead of stamping these out every year for
everybody who lives or why don't we just send them
a sticker with a new year on it and they
can just put the sticker on that way our prisoners
can go back to watching television the way they should be.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
So that's why we've got stickers. And on that.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Bi centennial year, every car in Colorado had a special
bi centennials plate. Why because it's also the centennial of Colorado.
That's why we're called a centennial state.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
This state.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Became a state one hundred years after the nation's founding,
so now it's one hundred and fifty years.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
I'm looking forward to three hundred years. That'll be cool.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
But just in case I miss it, there is apparently
a bi centennial plate you can order from the Department
Mortar Vehicles, if you want to pay for it. I
actually asked the governor about this. He said, oh, no,
we've got a special buy or one hundred and fifty
(16:13):
year plate, but you have to buy it.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
I don't want to buy it.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
I want to force it on everybody because I thought
the nineteen seventy six centennial plates were ugly as sin.
This terrible powder blue and this kind of seventies looking font. Oh,
it was awful compared to the beautiful green and white
usual Colorado plates that we had even back then. What
(16:42):
should we be working on today? Either on a national
or state level to get ready for next year. I
think the state should do something on its own. One
hundred and fifty years, that's cool. When the bi centennial happened,
(17:05):
we had a relatively uh, I'm pretty certain. I'm pretty
certain Carter was in office by then, wasn't he? Yeah,
I think so to eighty. There was a seventy six
election that he won. I could have sworn Carter was
(17:29):
in office. If not, it was the lagging months of.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
A Ford. That doesn't sound right. Somebody helped me out
with that. One three h three seven.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
One three eight two five five, And I remember the parades.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
I remember the re enactments. It was.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
It was a big deal, especially given the incredible pessimism
going through the country not that far after Watergate. Jimmy
Carter was not an exciting president. Vietnam did not go well,
malaise was happening, inflation was going crazy, and we're celebrating
(18:10):
two hundred years. Man, it's gone fast. So excuse me,
Zach Ford was president.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Thank you. That's what I needed to hear. Ford was president.
That doesn't sound right to me, I tell you, it
doesn't sound right. What should we do for the big one.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
There's got to be something something, shouldn't we like set
off a nuke?
Speaker 2 (18:47):
I mean something big.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Did you set off fire works? Be honest with me.
You don't even have me Ryan is out. Give me
a buzz.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Three oh three seven one three eight two five five.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
I asked for phone calls on people who actually used,
you know, the illegal fireworks this weekend, but apparently you
blew you all your fingers off, and therefore you can't
call me chickens three oh three seven one three eight
two five five. You could use your nose, you know.
(19:26):
There's an article in the Wall Street Journal that got
my attention. It was just a little column in the
lifestyle section. I think work life balance is overrated. You
are hired. Employers are getting brutally honest with applicants, warning
them of long hours and few boundaries. Quote. Companies are
(19:51):
in control again. I got mixed feelings on this. In
the world of COVID, it's the that much of America
was dialing it in. I'll be on the zoom meeting,
but I'll be at home. I'll do this, but I'll
work around it instead of that insane You're going to
(20:14):
be in the office and it's going to be rough,
and I expect you to put in more than forty
hours a week. Imagine, imagine this going on in France.
Let me read from the article Shopify wants a product
manager who can quote keep up.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
With an unrelenting pace solace.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
A healthcare marketplace tells job seekers, quote, if you're looking
for work life balance, this is an it. A posting
for a senior engineer at a software company. Rilla urges applicants, quote,
please don't join unless they are eager to work seventy
(20:58):
hours a week in person. Wow, So it seems impractical
to recruit workers with a pitch that is translated into
this is gonna hurt. Wouldn't have flown a couple of
years ago.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Here's the story.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Americans are feeling facing months long job searches and competition
from laid off workers as companies shrink headcount. So the
US is still adding jobs every month, the pace of
hiring has slowed, and some of the country's largest employers
are cutting their white collar workforces, and that's tougher environment.
(21:46):
Many applicants find managers that managers are taking a harder line.
They're not just reining in flexible schedules. Remote work and
the perks that came staples of the previously tight job market,
warning prospects and new employees to get ready for the grind,
(22:07):
and they're not afraid to say it. Google's co founder
Sergey Brinn in February told his employees that sixty.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Hours a week was the sweet.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Spot of productivity. How many hours do you put in?
Do you put in twelve hours a day? The federal
government warns staff this year of a new quote performance culture,
insisting that excellence is at every level. People are logging
(22:43):
into more meetings after eight pm than they did a
year ago, according to new Microsoft data.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Here's a quote from a recruiting head.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
They're testing the limits of what they can ask their employees,
knowing how hungry people are to work, knowing that they
are in the driver's seat.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
The pendulum has swung. Now, this is not.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Great news if you're an employee. It's great news if
you are an employee er. There is a tighter and
tighter marketplace for employees. Yet unemployment is down to a ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Four point one percent.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
You'd think that employees had all the power, but they don't.
Why because a lot of the work American needs is
not at a desk. A lot of the work American
needs is not at a keyboard and a computer. A
lot of the work American needs is out in a
(23:57):
field picking things, taking shovels and digging dirt, hauling wood
and putting it together to build homes, working the farm
on a tractor. Those those are the jobs that are needed.
(24:19):
And our new push to get illegal immigrants out of
the country is only going to make it tougher. So
companies are looking for savings and it could be your job,
especially now that more and more things can be done
with AI and great computing power. So we thought about
(24:45):
automating the future. We thought that machines would liberate us
and robots would.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Liberate us from the drudgery.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Of life, and that it would be blue collar jobs
that were.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
That were absorbed. But not me.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Not my white collar job as a financial analyst or
as a guy who programs a computer or makes schedules. No, No,
Mine is an intellectual endeavor. I will always be needed
because they need my brain for this. And as it
(25:29):
turns out, it's a lot easier for the technological wizzes
to build brains than it is to build bodies. Oh yeah,
we have some robots and a few autonomous robots, but
we don't have robots that can build houses.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
We don't have robots.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
That can clean hotel rooms and change the sheets and
clean the bathrooms.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
We don't have.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Robots that can work as well in kitchens like a
chef or a bus boy. This is not what the
Jetson's promised me. They promised me Rosie. Was it Rosie? Yeah, Rosie,
the robot who would wear a little maid's outfit and
keep my house clean and make my dinner. It turns
(26:26):
out my job at spacely Sprockets, And yes I remember,
and do you remember, by the way, spacely Sprocket's main competitor,
Cogswell Cogs. How is it I know this yet I
can't remember my own children's names.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
And something really wrong here anyway.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
It's the jobs that we thought were these safe, white
collar jobs.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
There be.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
So this software company Rilla, subsidizes employees to rent in
New York City if they minimize the commute time by
living closer to the office, the.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
CEO Theres says.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
He added that he hopes every employee in the company
becomes insanely wealthy, that workers in sales make an average
of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. That's
a lot of money, but.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
It's not that.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Good if you die at thirty because of it, or
if you have no time to use it. So would
you prefer an employer that when they hire you says
we expect sixty hours a week. We'll be calling you
late at night. No personal boundaries here. Your phone is
(28:02):
always on. We can call you whenever, so you're not surprised,
or would you like to find out about it later.
I'm glad that companies are being honest with it. They
interview one software developer in Minnesota. Quote, if I were
to work seventy hours a week, you would have to
(28:23):
pay me a million dollars plus. This is a guy
who's applied to about sixty jobs since April. He says
he is picky when he applies. I automatically opt out
of anything that seems like they don't respect a work
life balance. I don't understand the work life balance myself.
(28:52):
I am a really fortunate guy. I think few people
get to live their passions. My passion is to is
to fight for personal and economic liberty. I do that
at Independence Institute. We put things on the ballot, we
fight issues in court. I write for the is That
newspapers or TV show on Channel twelve.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
We'd get to fill in for guys like Ryan.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
I mean, I love what I do, trying to get
the word out that government destroys people's lives more so
than any other evil force ever created.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
And it's hard for me to imagine.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
People don't like their jobs, that people don't want to
do their jobs. I mean, I know it, but it
breaks my heart to think people are out there doing
things they hate and now that they have to do
it for sixty hours a week instead of forty. Oh,
that would be brutal if you didn't love your job.
(29:56):
I mean, honestly, I don't think I've ever really worked.
I'm sixty years old. I've never had a real job.
I'm a lucky son of a gun. So I don't
understand why people would not also love their jobs. Do you?
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Is it a American thing? Imagine in France where they
want to limit how long you work to like thirty
to thirty five hours a week, where you get it
seems half the year off and paid vacation. I don't
know how. I don't know how they compete out in
(30:40):
the real world. I guess the difference is they've been
able to build an economy on on intelligent things. That is,
if you're a lawyer, you're working with your brain. If
you're a landscaper, you're working with your hands. If you're
(31:06):
a doctor, now, being a doctor is a tough job.
You can't you can't get a day off, and you're.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Just feeding things into a computer.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Even jobs like that are the ones that are being
replaced by technology. Are you willing to work seventy hours
a week if they're If you're seeking a job, would
you prefer your prospective employer to be honest upfront? If
(31:39):
you're looking for a work life balance quote, this is
not the place for you. Yeah, I would want that,
And sooner or later, when you can't find anything else,
that might be the job you end up taking. Three
L three seven one three eight two five five seven
one three talk. I'm John Caldera in the Big Man.
(32:01):
Keep it right here. You're on six thirty khow seven
one three eight two five five seven one three talk.
It is hard to think about work. Did you have
a hard time getting to work today? I mean, I
sure did. It was just not.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
It's just not the day you want.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
It's it's I want to these these longer vacations, how
to put it, they're.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
There. They get me thinking I need more days off.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
At what point do we go back to work like
it was before COVID. Now that the one big, beautiful
bill has passed, there are some gems hidden in there.
The one that I think is worth really making sure
people understand is this whole.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
People are gonna be kicked off of Medicaid.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
You can throw the BS flag anytime you hear that
that is not the case. It adds a work requirement.
There was a time when people got things you expected
something in return. You don't need a full time job
(33:28):
to get Medicaid. You merely need to have a part
time job. If you're handicapped, this doesn't affect you. If
you're a parent with the young kids, this doesn't affect you.
When in the world did we turn into a country where.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
We reward not working. Let me put it this way.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Colorado is one of the wealthiest states in the country.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
We have one of the highest education shouldn't rates.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Our poverty rate is like one hundred four percent of
the population, yet.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
A third of Colorado is on Medicaid.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
You do the arithmetic, does it tell you that maybe
it picks out of control? Check out Independence Institute, go
to thinkfreedom dot org.
Live. This is this is John kelderic kind of you know,
half asking it, barely awake.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I think maybe that's that's a better way to do it.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Give me a call three or three seven one, three, eight,
two five five. I hope your Fourth of July was spectacular.
I've in Boulder where I live. Of course there is
no fireworks, because heaven forbid there'd be fireworks.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Did you did you have fireworks where you were?
Speaker 1 (00:29):
I saw a poll done was actually done by Reason Foundation.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Reasoning is, yeah, the Reason Foundation.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
And they asked a whole bunch of kind of patriotic
questions why did we separate from England? And the answer
depended upon your age. If you were between eighteen and
twenty five, only about twenty twenty three percent said taxation
without representation. When you got up to sixty five year olds,
(01:03):
it was well over eighty percent said taxation.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Now the question is, did people.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Who are older now and understand that, Were they dumb
back then when they were twenty I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
I just don't think they teach this stuff anymore.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
They don't teach why we had a revolution, why we
did this, and what an extraordinary experiment experiment America is
after nearly a quarter of a millennia. Anyway, give me
a call, three or three seven, three eight, two five five.
(01:45):
The one that I found interesting was that still overwhelmingly
Americans like fireworks. And I'm not talking going out to
see a show. Americans like shooting off their own fireworks.
(02:08):
You know, the rocket's red glare and all. There is
something magnificent about about sparklers, Roman candles, all the rest.
You know what it's like when you cross the Wyoming
border and you drive by a place called Pyro City.
(02:29):
How in the world can you not stop at any
place called Pyro City where you can buy all the
stuff your heart desires, things that will blow off your fingers.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
That your mom would never let you have. But now
that you're an adult, you can buy.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
And I mean you still won't tell her because you
can't stand up to your mom, But.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
That doesn't matter. It's right there and Piro City.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
I think there's a couple of different places up there
buy firecrackers.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Now, I don't know about you.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Growing up in Littleton in the seventies, occasionally some kid
their family would go up to Wyoming and they would
buy firecrackers, and the guy would get a hold of them.
This this was cocaine, all right. This was the underground
(03:26):
drug of middle school. The guy who had the firecrackers
could dole them out and.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Mark them up. It was.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
It was if you switch firecracker for illicit Colombian cocaine.
Same thing. There was a guy who was the dealer,
and you got to the dealer to buy a package
of firecrackers, and a package of firecrackers usually had either
(04:02):
sixteen or thirty two or sometimes.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Sixty four firecrackers.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
For those of you who don't know the incredible science
and art of firecrackers. You light them and they start exploding,
sounding like guns going off. But when you buy a
package of sixteen at a considerable price, you don't like
(04:34):
the package on fire, as is normally done. No, you
unwrap the package, you rip it open, and you fight
them one at a time. You dig little holes and
pretend there's sticks to dynamite, and see how deep a
hole a firecracker will will blow open.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
You.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
You try to see what you can blow up and
what you cannot blow up. You do the little trick
where you break the firecracker in half, bend it, light it,
and then it kind of turns into this little sparkler
thing that shoots out sparks for three seconds two seconds.
(05:22):
And of course the evil Canievel amongst the boys, would
hold a fire cracker at the tips of his fingers,
knowing to hold.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
It down at the very very very very very very.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Very bottom with his fingernails, light it and it would
explode in his fingers. Now you don't hold it in
the middle or touch the middle because it would blow
off your fingers.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
But that's the daredevil. And when I say that this
was done by the evil Canievl when.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
You were a kid talking about buddies of mind, when
we got firecrackers when we were thirty five years old.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Let's put it in.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
This jar and see if it blows up the jar. Yes,
let's do that. You gonna hold it in your hand. Yeah,
I used to do this when I was a kid. Like,
you're crazy. No, because how to put it. As a
male grows from being pre pubescent to adolescent to adult
(06:32):
to aged, clart does not change at all.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Oh yes, yes, he might be able to do his taxes.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
He might even be able to tie a necktie very conventionally,
but he will still try to blow up his finger
if you give him half a chance, because works over
(07:09):
the weekend. Did you shoot off fireworks? Did you buy
you know, the whimpy kind of fireworks that's a Roman
candle and he goes and it blows, you know, some
sparks in the air, or did you buy the real stuff?
You know what I'm talking about? Did you buy them eighties?
(07:30):
Because according to fifth grade folklore, an M eighty is
the same as a quarter stick of dynamite.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
We just knew this as fact. It was right there.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
You know, there's what four pints in a in a
court whatever that is, there are four four M eights,
four M eighties or was it an M sixty?
Speaker 2 (07:55):
I forget?
Speaker 1 (07:56):
And then the glorious cherry bomb. Of course we knew
about explosives. And then you get older, it's like, oh,
those kids stop it. So it was a little bit
more wisdom. Do you still support individual fireworks? And I'm
(08:17):
not just talking sparklers. Sparklers are wonderful. You need to
have sparklers. That's an American tradition. If you don't give
your kids sparklers, you're a bad parent. Now, they could
still burn the kid's hands. We still do exactly the
same stuff as as all the bad stuff. But do
(08:40):
you still support it or should it be banned? Three
oh three seven one three eight two five five seven
one three talk?
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Did you commit crime this weekend? Did you.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Light off things you should not light off? And when
you did, because I know you did. Did you have
that scary moment where you got one of those little
things that spins around on the ground and then flies
off in different directions, And then of course you do
it in your road in front of your house, and
(09:18):
of course it always goes under a car, and for
like three seconds you're certain it's going to ignite the
gas tank and you're going to see a magnificent explosion.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Come on, you did it? You know exactly what I'm
talking about. Or did you do the glow worm? Do
you remember the glow worm? Light the glow worm? And
it was this.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Toxic thing, Oh my god, And it would ignite it
like incense, but it would kind of grow, the ashes
would kind of puff out, and it would look kind
of like a glowworm.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
I always liked as a kid the smoke bombs. They
look like little cherry bombs. You would light them and
it would give out colored smoke. Why Because I watched
Star Trek and I dream a Genie and I gream
of Dnie. She would turn into smoke and move and
(10:16):
go into her little bottle. Then, don't get me talking
about how awesome that is. But how did they do it?
I was like, oh no, if you get a smoke bomb,
it's like that. And so you get a smoke bomb.
I don't know what carcinogen's I don't know what kind
of evil agent orange stuff comes flying out of smoke bombs.
(10:38):
But as a kid, it was the coolest and to
see it in different colors. How did you hide it
from your mom? It wasn't so much as you hide
it from your dad because if he found him, he'd
just go light him himself. Because again the stupid gene
(11:00):
and just locks in at six years old and you
ride it until you die. But mom, Mom does not
find blowing up things nearly as exciting as you do.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Why. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
It's like she's smart or something, and it likes it's
her job to keep you alive until you grow up.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Gonda buzzkill?
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Is that?
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Three or three? Seven?
Speaker 1 (11:31):
One three eight two five five seven one three talk
and of course, just like clockwork, you have to get
all the warnings about fireworks before Fourth of July, and
then you've got to hear all the stories of how
many more people have to go to the emergency room
(11:52):
because of fireworks.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
It's it's just tradition.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Here they are, they're coming in, and yeah, of course
that's what happens. Of course, if you worked at an er,
fourth of July has to suck. I mean probably better
than you know being in New Orleans during Marty Graul,
where all you're doing is pumping stomachs. You know, at
least here you're trying to sew fingers back on.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
That's gotta be fun.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Did you, when you were young have pop bottle rocket fights?
I cannot imagine in modern suburban Colorado the idea of people,
little kids shooting pop bottle rockets at one another would
go go over too well.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Did you have the guy in school who who was.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Brave enough to light the firecrackers off in the hallway
or in the lunch room. Oh, we we had those guys,
and the smoke would just hang there and hang there
and hang there. I can understand why so many nannyists
want to get rid of personal fireworks. I say, you
(13:19):
can pry them out of my cold, dead, fingerless hands.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Before you take mine.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Three all three seven one three eight two five five
seven one three Talk.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Did you bring your kids up? Did you get the
good stuff? And you know what I mean by the
good stuff?
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Did you get the stuff that can blow off your fingers?
Speaker 2 (13:50):
That's all all I'm looking for.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
According to the survey that I saw, a majority of
Americans still love shooting off fireworks personally.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
I found that refreshing the countdown clock starts. Now.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
In less than a year, our country will be two
hundred and fifty years old. I remember the bi centennial.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
I was a kid.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
I remember Colorado had those special license plates. This was back.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
You might remember this.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Every year the state would send you brand new license plates,
same number, have the same tag number, but it would
imprint a different year. So every year you took off
your old place, you put on your new plates, and
still until some guy at the at the state prison said,
(14:58):
you know, instead of stamping these out every year for
everybody who lives or why don't we just send them
a sticker with a new year on it and they
can just put the sticker on that way our prisoners
can go back to watching television the way they should be.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
So that's why we've got stickers. And on that.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Bi centennial year, every car in Colorado had a special
bi centennials plate. Why because it's also the centennial of Colorado.
That's why we're called a centennial state.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
This state.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Became a state one hundred years after the nation's founding,
so now it's one hundred and fifty years.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
I'm looking forward to three hundred years. That'll be cool.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
But just in case I miss it, there is apparently
a bi centennial plate you can order from the Department
Mortar Vehicles, if you want to pay for it. I
actually asked the governor about this. He said, oh, no,
we've got a special buy or one hundred and fifty
(16:13):
year plate, but you have to buy it.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
I don't want to buy it.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
I want to force it on everybody because I thought
the nineteen seventy six centennial plates were ugly as sin.
This terrible powder blue and this kind of seventies looking font. Oh,
it was awful compared to the beautiful green and white
usual Colorado plates that we had even back then. What
(16:42):
should we be working on today? Either on a national
or state level to get ready for next year. I
think the state should do something on its own. One
hundred and fifty years, that's cool. When the bi centennial happened,
(17:05):
we had a relatively uh, I'm pretty certain. I'm pretty
certain Carter was in office by then, wasn't he? Yeah,
I think so to eighty. There was a seventy six
election that he won. I could have sworn Carter was
(17:29):
in office. If not, it was the lagging months of.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
A Ford. That doesn't sound right. Somebody helped me out
with that. One three h three seven.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
One three eight two five five, And I remember the parades.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
I remember the re enactments. It was.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
It was a big deal, especially given the incredible pessimism
going through the country not that far after Watergate. Jimmy
Carter was not an exciting president. Vietnam did not go well,
malaise was happening, inflation was going crazy, and we're celebrating
(18:10):
two hundred years. Man, it's gone fast. So excuse me,
Zach Ford was president.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Thank you. That's what I needed to hear. Ford was president.
That doesn't sound right to me, I tell you, it
doesn't sound right. What should we do for the big one.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
There's got to be something something, shouldn't we like set
off a nuke?
Speaker 2 (18:47):
I mean something big.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Did you set off fire works? Be honest with me.
You don't even have me Ryan is out. Give me
a buzz.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Three oh three seven one three eight two five five.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
I asked for phone calls on people who actually used,
you know, the illegal fireworks this weekend, but apparently you
blew you all your fingers off, and therefore you can't
call me chickens three oh three seven one three eight
two five five. You could use your nose, you know.
(19:26):
There's an article in the Wall Street Journal that got
my attention. It was just a little column in the
lifestyle section. I think work life balance is overrated. You
are hired. Employers are getting brutally honest with applicants, warning
them of long hours and few boundaries. Quote. Companies are
(19:51):
in control again. I got mixed feelings on this. In
the world of COVID, it's the that much of America
was dialing it in. I'll be on the zoom meeting,
but I'll be at home. I'll do this, but I'll
work around it instead of that insane You're going to
(20:14):
be in the office and it's going to be rough,
and I expect you to put in more than forty
hours a week. Imagine, imagine this going on in France.
Let me read from the article Shopify wants a product
manager who can quote keep up.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
With an unrelenting pace solace.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
A healthcare marketplace tells job seekers, quote, if you're looking
for work life balance, this is an it. A posting
for a senior engineer at a software company. Rilla urges applicants, quote,
please don't join unless they are eager to work seventy
(20:58):
hours a week in person. Wow, So it seems impractical
to recruit workers with a pitch that is translated into
this is gonna hurt. Wouldn't have flown a couple of
years ago.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Here's the story.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Americans are feeling facing months long job searches and competition
from laid off workers as companies shrink headcount. So the
US is still adding jobs every month, the pace of
hiring has slowed, and some of the country's largest employers
are cutting their white collar workforces, and that's tougher environment.
(21:46):
Many applicants find managers that managers are taking a harder line.
They're not just reining in flexible schedules. Remote work and
the perks that came staples of the previously tight job market,
warning prospects and new employees to get ready for the grind,
(22:07):
and they're not afraid to say it. Google's co founder
Sergey Brinn in February told his employees that sixty.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Hours a week was the sweet.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Spot of productivity. How many hours do you put in?
Do you put in twelve hours a day? The federal
government warns staff this year of a new quote performance culture,
insisting that excellence is at every level. People are logging
(22:43):
into more meetings after eight pm than they did a
year ago, according to new Microsoft data.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Here's a quote from a recruiting head.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
They're testing the limits of what they can ask their employees,
knowing how hungry people are to work, knowing that they
are in the driver's seat.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
The pendulum has swung. Now, this is not.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Great news if you're an employee. It's great news if
you are an employee er. There is a tighter and
tighter marketplace for employees. Yet unemployment is down to a ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Four point one percent.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
You'd think that employees had all the power, but they don't.
Why because a lot of the work American needs is
not at a desk. A lot of the work American
needs is not at a keyboard and a computer. A
lot of the work American needs is out in a
(23:57):
field picking things, taking shovels and digging dirt, hauling wood
and putting it together to build homes, working the farm
on a tractor. Those those are the jobs that are needed.
(24:19):
And our new push to get illegal immigrants out of
the country is only going to make it tougher. So
companies are looking for savings and it could be your job,
especially now that more and more things can be done
with AI and great computing power. So we thought about
(24:45):
automating the future. We thought that machines would liberate us
and robots would.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Liberate us from the drudgery.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Of life, and that it would be blue collar jobs
that were.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
That were absorbed. But not me.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Not my white collar job as a financial analyst or
as a guy who programs a computer or makes schedules. No, No,
Mine is an intellectual endeavor. I will always be needed
because they need my brain for this. And as it
(25:29):
turns out, it's a lot easier for the technological wizzes
to build brains than it is to build bodies. Oh yeah,
we have some robots and a few autonomous robots, but
we don't have robots that can build houses.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
We don't have robots.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
That can clean hotel rooms and change the sheets and
clean the bathrooms.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
We don't have.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Robots that can work as well in kitchens like a
chef or a bus boy. This is not what the
Jetson's promised me. They promised me Rosie. Was it Rosie? Yeah, Rosie,
the robot who would wear a little maid's outfit and
keep my house clean and make my dinner. It turns
(26:26):
out my job at spacely Sprockets, And yes I remember,
and do you remember, by the way, spacely Sprocket's main competitor,
Cogswell Cogs. How is it I know this yet I
can't remember my own children's names.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
And something really wrong here anyway.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
It's the jobs that we thought were these safe, white
collar jobs.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
There be.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
So this software company Rilla, subsidizes employees to rent in
New York City if they minimize the commute time by
living closer to the office, the.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
CEO Theres says.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
He added that he hopes every employee in the company
becomes insanely wealthy, that workers in sales make an average
of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. That's
a lot of money, but.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
It's not that.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Good if you die at thirty because of it, or
if you have no time to use it. So would
you prefer an employer that when they hire you says
we expect sixty hours a week. We'll be calling you
late at night. No personal boundaries here. Your phone is
(28:02):
always on. We can call you whenever, so you're not surprised,
or would you like to find out about it later.
I'm glad that companies are being honest with it. They
interview one software developer in Minnesota. Quote, if I were
to work seventy hours a week, you would have to
(28:23):
pay me a million dollars plus. This is a guy
who's applied to about sixty jobs since April. He says
he is picky when he applies. I automatically opt out
of anything that seems like they don't respect a work
life balance. I don't understand the work life balance myself.
(28:52):
I am a really fortunate guy. I think few people
get to live their passions. My passion is to is
to fight for personal and economic liberty. I do that
at Independence Institute. We put things on the ballot, we
fight issues in court. I write for the is That
newspapers or TV show on Channel twelve.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
We'd get to fill in for guys like Ryan.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
I mean, I love what I do, trying to get
the word out that government destroys people's lives more so
than any other evil force ever created.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
And it's hard for me to imagine.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
People don't like their jobs, that people don't want to
do their jobs. I mean, I know it, but it
breaks my heart to think people are out there doing
things they hate and now that they have to do
it for sixty hours a week instead of forty. Oh,
that would be brutal if you didn't love your job.
(29:56):
I mean, honestly, I don't think I've ever really worked.
I'm sixty years old. I've never had a real job.
I'm a lucky son of a gun. So I don't
understand why people would not also love their jobs. Do you?
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Is it a American thing? Imagine in France where they
want to limit how long you work to like thirty
to thirty five hours a week, where you get it
seems half the year off and paid vacation. I don't
know how. I don't know how they compete out in
(30:40):
the real world. I guess the difference is they've been
able to build an economy on on intelligent things. That is,
if you're a lawyer, you're working with your brain. If
you're a landscaper, you're working with your hands. If you're
(31:06):
a doctor, now, being a doctor is a tough job.
You can't you can't get a day off, and you're.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Just feeding things into a computer.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Even jobs like that are the ones that are being
replaced by technology. Are you willing to work seventy hours
a week if they're If you're seeking a job, would
you prefer your prospective employer to be honest upfront? If
(31:39):
you're looking for a work life balance quote, this is
not the place for you. Yeah, I would want that,
And sooner or later, when you can't find anything else,
that might be the job you end up taking. Three
L three seven one three eight two five five seven
one three talk. I'm John Caldera in the Big Man.
(32:01):
Keep it right here. You're on six thirty khow seven
one three eight two five five seven one three talk.
It is hard to think about work. Did you have
a hard time getting to work today? I mean, I
sure did. It was just not.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
It's just not the day you want.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
It's it's I want to these these longer vacations, how
to put it, they're.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
There. They get me thinking I need more days off.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
At what point do we go back to work like
it was before COVID. Now that the one big, beautiful
bill has passed, there are some gems hidden in there.
The one that I think is worth really making sure
people understand is this whole.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
People are gonna be kicked off of Medicaid.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
You can throw the BS flag anytime you hear that
that is not the case. It adds a work requirement.
There was a time when people got things you expected
something in return. You don't need a full time job
(33:28):
to get Medicaid. You merely need to have a part
time job. If you're handicapped, this doesn't affect you. If
you're a parent with the young kids, this doesn't affect you.
When in the world did we turn into a country where.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
We reward not working. Let me put it this way.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Colorado is one of the wealthiest states in the country.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
We have one of the highest education shouldn't rates.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Our poverty rate is like one hundred four percent of
the population, yet.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
A third of Colorado is on Medicaid.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
You do the arithmetic, does it tell you that maybe
it picks out of control? Check out Independence Institute, go
to thinkfreedom dot org.
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